Six Free Agent Defensemen The Edmonton Oilers Could Sign

Earlier today, we looked at the Oilers’ need to add another reliable veteran to their current group. As it happens, while the free agent market has cooled considerably since the start of the month, there are still a number of players available that might be a good fit.

Carlo Colaiacovo seems to be regarded as the cream of the remaining defenseman crop. He played top-four minutes for St. Louis last year, mostly pairing with Alex Pietrangelo at even-strength, and had a pretty good season. He was also a key figure in the Blues’ power play. On the Oilers, he’d likely be in the mix for second-pairing work along with Nick Schultz, Ryan Whitney and Justin Schultz.

Despite his work as a top-four defender on one of the West’s toughest teams, I don’t really see Colaiacovo as a good fit for Edmonton, for a few reasons. The first is contract – Colaiacovo is 29, and the only legitimate top-four guy still in the prime of his career. The fact that he hasn’t signed yet would seem to indicate he’s looking for significant money and term on a new deal. Health is also a factor. Colaiacovo has been a pro since before the NHL lockout, but only once in his career has he played more than 70 games. There’s also the Pietrangelo effect – as Lowetide noted in his take on Colaiacovo, it would appear that Pietrangelo was driving results for the pairing and Colaiacovo was mostly along for the ride.

With the Pietrangelo/Colaiacovo pairing on the ice, the Blues managed an excellent Corsi ratio – 55.1-to-44.9 (Corsi is a total of shots, missed shots and blocked shots, and serves as a good proxy for territorial advantage/scoring chances; in this case the Blues had a heavy advantage over their opposition). With Pietrangelo and no Colaiacovo the ratio was similar – 54.8-to-45.2. With Colaiacovo and no Pietrangelo, however, it fell through the floor 48.0-to-52.0.

Michal Rozsival is a little older (33) but probably a better bet as a reliable veteran. He played top-four minutes in 2011-12 with Phoenix, moving up and down throughout the lineup as needed. An offensive defender earlier in his career, Rozsival has settled into an even-strength/penalty-killing role as he’s gotten older. On the Oilers, he’d likely be in the mix for second-pairing work along with Nick Schultz, Ryan Whitney and Justin Schultz, but more probably start the year on the third pairing.

Rozsival is a right-handed shot who can play in all situations (including offensive minutes, though he hasn’t been used in that role lately) and would be an outstanding number five for a team like Edmonton, who could offer him significant money on a one-year deal, or decent money on a longer-term contract. The only real question mark is injury – he finished the year on IR after an ugly hit from Dustin Brown, so he’d need to be healthy to be a good pick-up.

Thirty-five year-old Pavel Kubina is another potential fit, albeit with some warts. He played significant minutes in Tampa Bay and Philadelphia in 2011-12 (he was a factor in all situations) and still has a heavy shot, but he fell to 15 points last year – the lowest total of his NHL career. He’s big and has a right-handed shot, but would probably be a third-pairing option for the Oilers barring injury, as he struggled to keep up with more significant minutes last year.

Another interesting option is Milan Jurcina. Juricna was the New York Islanders’ number four defenseman last year. It was his seventh season in the NHL, and after six years in the minus-4 to plus-3 range he finished dead last in the NHL with a minus-34 rating (team had a little something to do with that – the Islanders boasted four of the NHL’s six worst plus/minus marks and had 10 guys finish with double-digit negative numbers). In this case, plus/minus is also heavily impacted by percentages – a year ago the Islanders shot 11.2% and posted a 0.912 SV% with Jurcina on the ice 5-on-5; this year they shot 5.6% and posted a 0.884 SV%. He’d probably slot in at the number five/six slot on the Oilers’ blue-line, but has shown that he can play top-four minutes when required.

Jurcina is a 6’4” defensive defender who can play significant minutes at even-strength and on the penalty-kill; despite missing 17 games he led the Islanders defense with 173 hits so he adds a physical element too. He’s been on one or two-year deals for most of his NHL career, and last season earned a career-high $1.6 million.

Even in a down year, Brett Clark played the second-most minutes on the Tampa Bay blue line and for the second consecutive season appeared in all 82 games. He had a bit of an off year (as witnessed by a minus-26 rating, though once again that’s misleading) but can still contribute in all areas and is used to both tough opposition and defensive zone minutes. He made $1.3 million last season in the last year of a two-year contract. He’d likely slot in as a five/six option in Edmonton.

Another option is Jaroslav Spacek, who last played in Edmonton during the 2006 run to the Stanley Cup Finals. Spacek spent most of last season as a third-pairing puck-mover who also saw time on the power play. At 38 years of age, Spacek isn’t the same player he was back then, but he can probably still play NHL hockey if a team is on the lookout for that particular skill-set. With Justin Schultz likely starting on the Oilers’ third pairing, though, Spacek might not be an ideal fir for Edmonton.

Of the available free agents, Michal Rozsival strikes me as the best fit for the Oilers in that he’s a legitimate top-four defenseman whose versatility makes him an ideal stop-gap regardless of which player goes down with injury or struggles with ineffectiveness. If he’s too expensive or unwilling to come to Edmonton, either Jurcina or Clark would be a better third-pairing option than Sutton, Peckham or Potter simply because they’ve shown an aptitude for playing above the third pairing when called upon. The price on Colaiacovo is likely to be a poor match for what he’s worth separated from Pietrangelo, while Kubina has never been a particularly fleet skater and looked like he lost a step last year.

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